My Lords, I will not be disclosing quite as much as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, did, but I will disclose that I am the chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, and it is in that context that I want to add a few remarks. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her amendment giving those of us who are concerned—I am sure that I speak for the whole Committee—about the potential effect, no doubt unintended, that the Bill might have on press freedom. I do not want to rehearse all that has been very well set out by the noble Lord, Lord Black, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell. What is vital, of course, is to think what potential chilling effect this might have on journalism, particularly public interest journalism.
One point that is perhaps worth emphasising is how expensive public interest journalism is, how heavy it is on resources and how easy it is for editors to say: “Look, this is far too difficult; you may not get what you want, it is expensive, and what is more it may be unlawful.” If you look at Clause 3(2) of the Bill, and are thinking about running a story to do with armaments, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said—I think that she was probably referring to the Snatch Land Rover issue; she confirms that that was the case—then you might well say to yourself that this is highly risky, because we are going to run a story about something which would be of interest to a foreign power with which we might be in conflict. It is just that sort of thing which this, in the absence of some sort of tailored amendment to the Bill, would have the unintended consequence of not just putting a journalist at risk but of somebody simply saying that they are not going to do the story or spend money on this.
So I hope that the Minister, who is otherwise preoccupied at the moment, may be able to consider these matters carefully, knowing how important public interest journalism is. I should say that I received some briefing from the Guardian. Although IPSO regulates 97% of those publications that we receive, it does not regulate the Guardian, so this does not in any way influence the job that I have.